give false urgency the slip: now!

I was eating a delicious chicken sandwich when I got the idea to write this.

Within seconds I was up and had the computer on, barely aware of what I was doing.

You know what that means, right? I immediately acted from a place of false urgency even though I am anti-false urgency.

False Urgency is tricky that way.

The good news is I noticed and went back to my sandwich, slowly savoring each bite. But not before seriously entertaining the idea of sitting down at the computer and eating my sandwich at the same time.

Damn! It happened again. False Urgency!

So here’s what I think about all this: there’s an awful lot of noise in our lives these days. Things get elevated and dramatized beyond the norm, making much of it seem urgent and important.

And we end up paying way more attention to it than it deserves.

Case in point: almost every day a newsletter shows up in my in-box or a blog post arrives in my reader saying I better act fast if I don’t want to miss the deadline for this very special program or that very special product.

Or, this is the last time ever that I can get this particular program or product.

Or, fees are going up soon and God forbid I should lose out on these rock-bottom prices!

What’s it all add up to? False Urgency.

I suppose this is marketing on steroids, thanks to 21st century technology. Still, I am so grateful for those gentle souls who refrain from playing the false urgency card. I’m sure they already know what I’ve discovered: there will always be another program or product right around the corner.

To be fair, I do have a history with false urgency that precedes our speedy 21st century and internet marketing.

Indeed, my creative muse has a bad habit of insisting I drop everything and get going on this new thing right now. And yes, I can sometimes get sucked into the urgencies that other people are feeling.

But the thing is, I’m way more susceptible to that nowadays because of the surfeit of false-urgent information coming my way on a daily basis.

So what’s a gal to do?

Well, this time I took a deep breath and made a wordle, dumping the churning thoughts and feelings into a free write and printing it out. Then I gleefully had at it with colorful crayons and chalk pastels. As the urgency flowed out through my finger tips and spilled onto the paper I began to breathe easier. When I thought it was done I scraped around on it with scissors. Then crumpled it up. And ripped it to shreds, just for good measure.

Buh Bye, False Urgency.

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Death to false urgency! I’m feeling you on this one for sure! Recently, I gave some deep thought to distraction– what it looks like in my life, what purpose it serves and what it blocks me from doing. After reading your blog post, I am realizing how false urgency is yet another way in which I allow myself to be sidetracked, distracted and derailed. In addition, false urgency also creates a feeling of anxiousness that is unnecessary and dare I say, toxic! Thank you for bringing this everyday stressor/distractor to the forefront of my consciousness today! I feel better apt to name the thing and stomp it out when it try’s to distract me from being present when Im already enjoying my life in the moment!

This was fun to read. I liked what you did with the completed wordle:~) It made me laugh.

Also, this line is priceless in its truth: “marketing on steroids.” That is so the case today. Everything we get seems to say “NOW. DO IT NOW!”

With my writing, I have to balance between overkill — meaning I write and do nothing else all day — and getting an idea down for later work. It’s a constant challenge for me, especially since persistence is one of my top values. I’m the bulldog — I don’t let go easily, even when I should.

Thanks for giving me something new to chew on, Sara (said bulldogishly!) Never thought of myself as very persistent, but yeah, I can certainly relate to the overkill thing. And the DO IT NOW message makes it even harder to find that balance you speak of.